Category Archives: Weather, Seasons, & Celebrations

Monday!

Yes, it deserves an exclamation point. It is Monday, my son is at school for the first time in seven days, and it’s gloriously sunny out there. Lovely things happened this weekend, although it was much too closely scheduled and stressed me out that way, and I’m thoroughly drained from the week of dealing with a boy who was home only so that he wouldn’t pass his cold along, because he certainly had the energy to go.

The roundup will follow at some point. I hope everyone has a fabulous day.

It’s Imbolc today/tomorrow/when the sun hits 15 degrees of Aquarius, however you celebrate it. I’m going for a week-long thing, myself. We started with pagan playgroup yesterday, and lit candles to Brigid this morning and read about the things she’s associated with with before the boy went to school. So a blessed Imbolc to one and all, or Candlemas, or la Feile Bride, whatever you call it. May all your groundhogs assure you of an early spring.

Weekend Roundup

I’ve been trying to work up the energy to do this post, but it’s hard. Saturday pretty much killed me, and various small irritations on Sunday piled up and got bigger, and by this morning I was ready to classify the whole weekend a loss. Which isn’t accurate at all, and intellectually I can look back and see all the good things that happened; I’m just in a bad headspace, and the fibro is winning today.

Saturday morning the boy and I took HRH to the airport, where he rented a car to drive to the Ottawa anti-prorogation rally. The boy and I came home, made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, then headed out to attend the double-barrelled Aubin-Murphy progeny birthday party at Fundomondo. The boy had been looking forward to this for weeks, so it was a crushing obstacle for both of us when he encountered the giant indoor play structure and realized that it overwhelmed him. He desperately wanted to play on it, but it scared him at the same time. There were about twenty minutes of very stormy tears before I could coax him into the party room for some snacks and juice. Part of the problem was that the last time he’d been, he was young enough to play in the little kids’ section, and this time he was definitely not. But he’s old enough to get halfway up the big kids’ structure, look down, and be terrified. In the end we spent our time curled up on one of the couches together, playing with the games on the iPod Touch (and Debra showed us a rollercoaster game on hers, which thrilled him to no end). He was awkwardly caught between the ages of the older children and the youngest, who has been his playmate at the caregiver’s, but who was sticking to her older sister like glue, racing around the play structure with no fear. I think he might have been okay if he’d had someone of his age up there with him to distract him and encourage him along. He was very upset that I couldn’t play up there with him.

For my part, it was lovely to see and speak with adults I don’t see very often. And I got a cup of coffee and a piece of cake out of it, too.

(Small irritating thing of the weekend Number One: When we were divesting ourselves of our winterwear, the staff member who greeted us asked the boy if he’d like a grilled cheese or a hot dog for lunch at the party, and the boy said, “Chicken nuggets.” The man said, rather snottily, “We only serve healthy food here.” To which I wanted to say, “You’re offering my son hot dogs and you saying you’re serving healthy food? We make homemade breaded chicken nuggets, thank you very much, which I guarantee are one hundred percent healthier than your hot dogs.” I need to rethink my “keep mouth shut and don’t engage” policy, because I’m really tired of being the one to bite my tongue to avoid confrontation when people deserve to have their rudeness pointed out.)

After the party the boy indulged me and let me go to the yarn store in the same mall, where I picked up two braids of Fleece Artist roving (why I didn’t pick up all three there I do not know; perhaps I will stop by this weekend and see if the last one is still available). We got home and assembled the Knex kit that had been in his loot bag, then played with Lego and coloured until HRH called to be picked up from the airport again. After dinner the boy asked if he could play Rock Band, so we set it up and he absolutely smashed his way gleefully through Blitzkrieg Bop on the drums. Twice. Allowing him to do something so exciting just before getting ready for bed may not have been the best of plans, but we had a heck of a lot of fun.

Astute readers will see that there is no nap in this daily summary, and that is correct. I suspect that had something to do with the tears at the party as well; it all coincided with what should have been his naptime. Anyway, all this to say that when the boy’s teeth had been brushed and his pyjamas put on, he came into my office to tell he was ready for our storytime, and he looked at the computer monitor, where he saw dear little Zoe, Neil Gaiman’s cat who was dying from a esophageal tumour (and whose exquisite portrait graced my desktop for a good three months last year). And without a pause, the boy said, “Is that cat dead?” and started crying. Yes; before I’d had a chance to tell him who it was, and why I was reading a post about her. We soothed him for a good ten minutes, because he was extremely distraught about this cat whom he’d intuited was dying, and that propelled him into wanting Maggie, and asking if Zoe was going to go to the Summerlands, and was she going to be well again there, and what happens to their bodies?, and it was hard for everyone. We talked about writing “your friend Neil” a note to make him feel better about Zoe, telling him that she would meet Maggie in the Summerlands, and it really touched me that this child wanted to reach out to a man he’d never met to make him feel better about his loss. He is, at times, so intensely empathetic.

He passed out within four minutes after his story, before my cuddle was even over. I wasn’t surprised. It had been a very emotional day for him.

HRH and I were then initiated into the joys of Settlers of Catan, a board game that we’d heard about for a good sixish years but had never played. The upstairs neighbours bought a set, and we all settled down with Bailey’s and cookies and had a really good time. HRH and I are planning to buy an expansion set for it so we can do this semi-regularly.

Sunday we decided to do absolutely nothing. Friday I’d broken into the light brown Coopworth I had bought over Christmas week, and I was horrified at the quality of it; it’s full of neps and vegetable matter. It’s frustrating because under all the crap I can tell there’s a fluffy, soft, silky long-stapled wool. So Sunday I decided to wrestle with it and try to determine the best way to spin it, because I wasn’t going to waste it. I got some Aran/bulk two-ply done, but I decided to experiment with a laceweight single, theorizing that it might be easier to pick out the neps and dried grass that way. The Coopworth has grudgingly agreed to be spun laceweight, but only with plenty of cross-lacing, and by supported long draw. Neps were mostly minimised this way, but it’s still annoying. And I discovered that I have *another* bag of Coopworth stashed, in dark brown; it’s what was included in my wheel when I bought it. A quick peek into the bag shows vegetable matter and a few neps there, as well; I wont know the extent of it till I haul some off to predraft it and try to get it spun. Research on Ravelry forums this morning has turned up the general opinion among wheel sellers and buyers that the fibre included in the Louet wheel kits is of seconds quality; apparently some LYSs open the boxes and switch out the crappy fibre for good fibre instead, which is really nice for the beginning spinners. Reading this, though, I wondered if the LYS I bought this bag of fibre from did something similar, but put the lousy-grade fibre taken out of the box on the shelf to sell to an unsuspecting spinner, like me. Either way, I’m not impressed. People have assured the spinners of low-quality fibre that the Louet stuff in general is good, which has otherwise been my experience.

While I spun and muttered nasty things at my fibre, HRH and the boy played video games. The boy’s getting to an age where he’s got more fine motor control and a better understanding of how to manipulate controls to obtain a desired outcome, and to understand instructions. He has also reached the age where he finds the Raving Rabbids hilarious. HRH still has to talk him through things, and often has to direct a lot of the action, but it was great to hear them giggling together in the next room. We also got him going on the Wii Fit balance games, and the Shaun White snowboarding game that Scott worked on, and much fun was had.

For dinner I made a fabulous turkey pot pie with half the breast we’d frozen from Christmas dinner, and slurry stock from the 2008 Christmas bird. I usually use phyllo pastry to top my pot pies but I forgot to defrost it in time, so I made a basic shortening dough which worked brilliantly. Lacking anything else I added diced potatoes and parsnips along with the onions, and it was delicious. While I cooked, HRH whisked the boy downstairs to look at the upcoming weather, and while they were down there they logged on to WOW and the boy made a character of his very own. When I went down to get them I discovered that the boy had made a gnome rogue, and had already mastered how to move around, how to initiate an attack, and the key combos to follow through. He very proudly showed me how he took down wolves to sell the meat in order to gain a pair of leather gloves.

When he was in bed, HRH and I headed out to our sort-of-monthly-but-not-really steampunquian game, which was fun for most of us but oddly paced. When I got home I slept badly, being woken up once by a cat and once by the boy, and in between having stressful dreams about the steampunquian party being caught in a dangerous underground situation, and then about having a huge emotional confrontation with one of the player characters (one that I suspect is coming eventually, but it was very upsetting in the dream nonetheless), and finally about stage managing a play where no one was ready for anything and the second lead actress didn’t show up after intermission so I had to go on with a script in my hand while still stage managing. And something that frustrated me on the way out of the game the previous night started gnawing at me, so today has been unpleasant as a result of it all. And it’s grey and rainy and I’m just generally out of sorts.

But so far I have done work associated with the cello manual, and solved a wifi Mac mystery with the help of my research skills and my local Mac allies (which took up way too much of my time today, but at least now I know that it’s nothing I’m doing wrong — in fact, I am doing everything extra-right — it’s someone else who hasn’t secured their computer properly and my Mac is picking up their file-sharing signal), and have handled correspondence, among which was contact made by a previous client who will have more work for me soon, and who put a friend in contact with me for a small contract with them. So!

I missed the window I had for cello practice when no one was in the building, and because it’s so grey outside I can’t tell what time of day it is, which messes with my sense of how the day unwinds and things are paced. No, looking at a clock doesn’t help; I can’t internalise it. And so the day feels like it has gotten away from me.

I need to repeatedly remind myself that when the fibro rears its ugly head, I am not a failure, and that it’s okay to be quiet and not get things done.

Fifty-Five Months Old!

It was Christmas, which always kind of decimates the January monthly post. The boy had a terrific holiday season, ranging from Santa to various parties at school and with friends, such as the godfamily singalong. He helped make cookies and pies, and to prepare meals, and was very helpful in general. He really got into the spirit of things, and having a four-year-old child in the house means you can’t help but get into the spirit along with them. He’s still a little unclear on the concept of a secret, though, and was so excited that he would often run up to people and say, “We got you a present, and it’s [insert gift here]”. Fortunately we did a lot of clapping hands over ears or mouth, and what bits of information managed to escape were either missed by the giftees or were about gifts the recipient already knew about.

He was terrific about opening gifts this year. Last year he was ill and lost interest in the process, and at recent birthdays he’d been more excited about ripping the paper off and seeing what was inside before jumping immediately to the next gift. This year, though, he returned to his previous behaviour of opening and playing with the item inside, exploring it thoroughly before moving on to the next thing. Unless it was clothes, of course, which didn’t interest him much at the time, but he was been enjoying them very much as we take new shirts and socks out of the drawers come time to get dressed of a morning. He got piles of new books (we had to remove the basket of toys on the bottom shelf of his bookcase in order to make room for them), clothes, and a few very carefully selected toys. This was a Star Wars Christmas in a couple of ways: we got him the Clone Wars animated movie, and the local grandparents gave him a ship from the Clone Wars line. It was also a Lego Christmas, as he got kits from the upstairs neighbours, the Oakville grandparents, and MLG.

And holy cats, the progress he’s making on following directions in those kits. On the harder kits we’ve been getting him to sort the blocks and help put together the simpler parts while we assemble the bulk of the unit, but he got a kit of small work vehicles on Christmas day and he pretty much followed the pictograms to assemble one on his own, being talking through the harder bits by myself or HRH. It’s thrilling to watch that kind of thought process, the ability to turn a picture into a fine motor process with actual three-dimensional items.

He got very upset about our Christmas tree. You see, we left on the 23rd, and there was no point leaving it up while we were gone; for one thing, it would be prime cat disaster material, and for another, it would be a fire hazard. We got it early in order to enjoy it for two weeks, planning to take it down the night before we left. The boy cried and cried, and said that he wanted to keep it, and that Santa had to put presents under our tree. (He was going to put presents under the tree at the house we’d be in on Christmas, we pointed out, but this did not calm the angst about whose tree under which Santa would be placing whose presents.)

It’s winter, and there’s snow, which means he’s ecstatic about being outside and rolling around in the stuff. Back when the local grandparents bought him the wagon for his second birthday, we asked them to get one that could be converted to a sled of sorts by switching the wheels for skis. For the first time this winter HRH swapped them out, with the boy’s help, and the boy has been gleefully dragging it all over the yard. They took it down to the corner store, and while it bumps and scratches on the barer patches of the sidewalk it really flies when it’s on snow. It’s like a new toy. Also in backyard news, the slide from the back deck has been built again, this year with extra banking so that when the boy goes down on his saucer he really zings around the perimeter of the yard and ends up pretty much at the base of the stairs to the upper apartment. He only has to get up, grab the saucer, and drag it a couple of feet to the deck stairs, drag it up the steps, and he’s ready to launch himself off the back deck again.

His nap is officially being phased out. He naps only twice a week at school now, otherwise staying awake through the general rest time in another room with an educator and his best friend at preschool, working on letters and words and reading. Unless, of course, he very obviously needs a nap, in which case he has a lie-down. At home we’re playing it by ear. If he’s running on high, then we do the nap thing in order to give him a break. If he’s fine, then we carry on without it.

With zero surprise to any of us, the new TMBG album has been a super hit. So much so that after owning it for three days he was singing a good chunk of the songs and acting out the videos. They’re doing a dinosaur unit at preschool this month, and he informed one of his educators that he was going to be a paleontologist when he grew up. “Ah,” she said to the educator who had been running the material, “so you’ve gotten to the paleontology part of the unit?” “No,” said the dino-unit educator. “We haven’t.” And they both just looked at the boy, who went on to burble happily about what paleontologists do.

We’re about to embark on the kindergarten open house merry-go-round, which terrifies me to a small degree. I happened to see an ad in the local paper for one this past week, so I casually looked it up and discovered that kindergarten registration happens at the beginning of February. In two weeks. With education being a provincial responsibility, and children being on the civil roll, one would think the government would think to point out the necessity of upcoming registration via mail, but apparently not; one is supposed to pick this up by osmosis or something. Perhaps daycares generally mention it, but the other kids in preschool with the boy have siblings so everyone else knows, and mentioning it to us may have slipped his educator’s mind. We’ve already missed the open houses for the more exclusive schools (last November, how helpful), so now we get to catch what we can. And there’s the added tangle of moving at an undetermined time this summer to be closer to HRH’s job (and oh, the money we will save on gas alone) so will there be problems registering for a school in anther zone and under another school board’s aegis while we’re still living here? The Internet is remarkably unhelpful in this respect. Actually, the Internet is remarkably unhelpful about the whole kindergarten issue; I am mostly directed to contact individual schools. Which makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose, but isn’t comforting at all for someone who likes to research intensively before walking into an actual person-to-person encounter. I hate not having information. I’m also told by the Internet that I should have obtained a certificate of eligibility for instruction in English a year ago to make sure we have one on time in case there are bureaucratic issues, which is not constructive in the least. If I don’t know I have to do it, I can’t do it. It will all work out, I’m sure. I’m just going to quietly deal with anxiety attacks here in the corner until it is.

And finally, the other big news of the month is the removal of the back of the car seat to make it a booster seat only! This is a huge relief for everyone. The boy is at a height and weight where it’s possible, and it’s much less fuss. We’re all thankful.

Not the 2009 Retrospective Post

I’ve tried doing the 2009 retrospective post, but it’s very slim and I keep thinking I must be missing something really big, so I’m sitting on it for the time being.

In other news, I’m sick, which is really annoying as I’ve had to cancel two things already this year. (I think it’s two. Last year’s Cancel-O-Rama may be blurring into this year.) This feels suspiciously like gastro, which is not the way I wanted to begin the year. And to top it off I’ve pulled my back today, so I’m in a fabulous mood because even sitting hurts and I have work to do.

Speaking of which (work, not the back) I am currently in the throes of the design and layout for A Modern Cellist’s Manual, and I suspect that Emily and I are having way, way too much fun with it. It’s great to be able to chat with someone three time zones and four thousand kilometres away, and send samples of things back and forth immediately. Living in the future is very useful. It also helps to be working with someone who has a very similar sense of humour, who coincidentally loves the samples I send to her.

Our postman retired at the end of December. He let us know as we were leaving before Christmas (literally; HRH stopped the car so I could get out and watch to see if there was any mail to be put in our box). I said a heartfelt thank you for everything he’d done for us and wished him an excellent retirement, but I wish I’d known earlier so that I could have given him a gift certificate to Tim Horton’s or Chapters. He was truly fabulous, always focused but cheerful, with a dry wit. He never complained about the piles of books I used to order as research when I was on a contract. I will miss him.

HRH has already repaired the CD tower that fell apart in a spectacularly attackish way on New Year’s Day (thank goodness for MLG, Mackay, and Ceri, who were all here and who helped rescue the hundred-plus CDs and the pieces of the unit, because HRH caught it across his back and was stuck). It has been screwed into the wall so it won’t attack anyone again.

I am dragging my feet about finishing Mum’s silk scarf. It’s very annoying because I only have about five inches to go, but wow, the resistance I’m getting from my subconscious is something else again. I’m scheduling an episode of Slings & Arrows (season 2, aka the Macbeth season) per workday to watch while I knit, but even that’s not motivating me very well.

Thanks to the piles of snow we’ve gotten over the past two weeks, HRH and the boy have once again built the massive slide in the backyard that starts at the little door off the back deck and winds around the outside of the yard. The boy positively flies on his little saucer-sled and makes it about three-quarters of the way around the yard before stopping. It’s hilarious to watch.

I haven’t really spun anything this year so far, other than a sample to show the Marcs what the process entailed, but it will come. If I made resolutions, one would be to spin more and sell the resulting stuff so I don’t have to worry about what to eventually make with it and at least cover the cost of the fibre. I can spin, enjoy the process, and then Etsy it without anxiety.

And finally, I have moved my dresser out of the corner of our bedroom because the puddles of frigid water behind it and the black mold were just too much to keep up with. This way the air circulates more and will theoretically slow the problem down.

Right. Back to some editing, and then some knitting.

Christmas 2009 Roundup

This what I’ve got. I’m really tired, and it’s kind of superficial, but it’s all you get.

We had a good drive down; thanks to the mild farewell snowstorm that hit the evening before and was still happening when we left, there were messy roads till Kingston, but after that it was fine. There was less and less snow as we went southwest; as close as Cornwall we were noticing significantly lower snow-to-square footage on the side of the road. The only other thing of note regarding the drive down was that thanks to multiple rest stops being closed for renovation (read: levelled to the ground) and one stop’s fuel pumps being cordoned off for some reason, there was only ONE fuel stop open between the QC/ON border and Toronto. Crazy. Of course, we are brilliant, and do not rely on the rest stops; we pull off the highway and fuel up/eat in non-rest-stop type places. Usually Kingston, actually.

The boy did cookie baking with Nana the morning of the 24th while HRH and I went out shopping. The stores were remarkably quiet, the streets sane, and we were mystified. I picked up Dragon Age for the Xbox for HRH and told him to forget I’d done so; we found a copy of TMBG album in Toys R Us, of all places, after months of being foiled at finding it in local record and bookstores. We looked for Star Wars action figures there, too, but couldn’t find any decent ones. We hit a dollar store, where we could not find any Xmas socks, alas (the boy adores Xmas socks with a passion, and getting him a new pair every year is a Thing) but they did have a snowman cup that matched the Santa cup the boy had in his stocking last year, and found some stickers and a remarkably decent pair of binoculars there, too. As the action figures were a bust, we picked up a copy of the Clone Wars movie for him, too.

We got home and I wrapped our gifts for everyone with the boy, which was kind of an exercise in patience. After putting him down for a nap, we went out to local yarn store to look at the wheels I was going to rent, only to discover that they were closed. I’d asked via email if they were open on the 24th and they’d said yes; not there or on their website did they say anything about closing early. They closed at 2; we got there at 2:15. I was a tad annoyed. It was a good thing HRH had managed to fit my wheel in the car, so I wasn’t left without one all week.

On Xmas morning, the boy got up to find his stocking and a basket in front of his bedroom door. He came into our bed to open it all, ate both snowmen chocolates, thought the binoculars and cup very cool indeed, and was thrilled with his books and the Transformer.

We dressed and had breakfast, then opened our gifts. I was so tired that I just kind of sat there with gifts on my lap and watched everyone else open things. The boy kept passing gifts out before we’d finished opening the last round. He got lots of books and clothes. I received lots of kitchen stuff that I’d put on my wish list a while back (an adjustable sink strainer, not one but two offset spatulas, a digital oven thermometer) and things I hadn’t asked for like a new Silpat rolling pin, and linen dishcloths, potholders, herbs, and sea salt from Provence. HRH and the boy got me the padded iTouch skin I’d asked for (sorry, Meallanmouse; it is no longer the Little Pirate Computer, as the boy used to call it; it is now the Little Flowered Computer).

My cousin and his family came over after the boy’s nap for the last round of gifting and a truly wonderful roast beef Christmas dinner. They almost didn’t because most of them had colds, but we all shrugged and figured that unless someone was deathly ill, there was no point in cancelling our plans. And it turned out they weren’t really very ill at all, so I’m glad they came. On the other hand, HRH and my father were on the edge of nasty colds themselves, which got worse at various rates over the week.

On Saturday the 26th we ventured out to the local bookstore to spend happy gift certificates, and I got three books from my wish list, one I found, a new calendar, adorable owl holiday cards for next year (because yes, our holiday cards were also thrown out along with the tags and bows and ribbons), and renewed my discount card. (No, the gift card did not cover all this; only half. And the store did not have three of the books that had been higher on my wish list, nor were they anywhere within commutable distance.) We were again really rather surprised at the lack of insanity on the roads and in the shops. Very civilized.

On the morning of Sunday the 27th HRH and I left the boy making Rice Krispie squares with Nana and icing the rest of the batch of cookies they’d made on the 24th, and hit the local Michaels for yarn and sketchbooks on sale. The boy insisted that he wanted his handknit scarf in black, so I got two skeins of black Wool-Ease Thick & Chunky and cast on to knit a double-thickness scarf in the round, nice easy straightforward knitting that I could do in the car without having to count. I also got a basket to keep my yarn and wheel accessories in. Then we headed out to the LYS that had been closed on the 24th, and I ended up buying some light brown Coopworth and my very first Malabrigo ever, the worsted weight merino in the Stonechat colourway. It’s so wonderfully soft and squooshy that I may never knit it; I might just cuddle it for the rest of my life.

Sunday afternoon we headed out to my cousin’s home for dinner with them, and we had some lovely beer: Hockley’s Dark. He had it in a litre bottle with a swing cap. (I’m noting it here for future reference. There’s not much else to say other than it’s delicious and we will be haunting the closer LCBOs for it.) He also gave me a g&t made with Hendrick’s gin, which was the most flavourful gins I’ve ever tried. I find a lot of gin sharp, but this was mellow and smooth.

Monday we saw The Princess and the Frog, which was fun because I can’t remember the last time my mother and I saw a new Disney film in the theatre together. It was fine, but it will never be among my favourite Disney films because it just didn’t grab me, despite loving the palette, the designs, and the message. I think a lot of it was the music. While I appreciate a lot of Randy Newman’s stuff, he’s not among the composers whose music I really enjoy. Part of it was also my inability to feel close to any of the characters, and the vague sense that the story was rushing, somehow. At the end, when the couple was transformed back into humans, the boy sighed and said, “Oh, I wanted them to stay frogs,” which may have been my favourite moment of the entire experience. (Hey, if you were a four year old boy, don’t you think staying a frog would be more magical?) I may enjoy it more after watching it when it comes out on DVD.

My mother’s silk scarf (not previously mentioned here because it was a gift, but this was the yarn… I’ll post a picture when it’s done) was not ready in time for Christmas. I wrapped it unfinished and let her open it so I could knit for the rest of the trip in front of her, but even then, although I increased its length four- or fivefold, I didn’t finish. I admitted to myself on the Monday that even if I did heroically polish off the knitting part, I couldn’t block it, so I gave myself permission to slow down because I’d need to do the after-knitting finishing at home anyhow. The silk just doesn’t move the way the Koigu did. And I lost a lot of time moving lifelines, because the silk was splitty and my lifeline yarn slowly shredded. I ended up switching to unwaxed dental floss for the lifeline.

We left the morning of Wednesday the 30st and made very good time to Maxville, where we spent the afternoon and night with t! and Jan and Rowan Tree Farm. This was absolutely wonderful, as when we visit we usually need to leave a couple of hours after we get there in order to be home for the boy’s bedtime, which also means (ahem) that both of us cannot indulge in alcohol. No such restrictions this time! We also got a surprise visit from Fearsclave and Mousme late the day we got there, which was delightful as we don’t see either of them often enough. We slept over, and it worked beautifully. Upon rising the next morning the boy and I visited the chicken house with Jan (the boy just can’t seem to remember to call it a hen house or a chicken coop, and really, ‘chicken house’ is so cute I’m not pushing it very hard) and the boy got to help find the eggs and tried to pet any chicken that got too close to him. We were rewarded with two crows from the rooster as we walked back to the house for breakfast (t!’s justly famed French toast). HRH and t! had a most excellent time playing bass together on the Wednesday night and the Thursday morning, and the boy had a marvelous time romping with Carter (spending a lot of the non-playing time walking around with his arm slung over the dog’s shoulders), and I got to chat and knit with Jan. It was all sorts of good crammed into about twenty hours, and we left with much regret at noon on Thursday the 31st.

We got home around one o’clock and did a quick stop at the grocery store so that we could gather supplies for the scallop dish I was to take to the New Year’s Eve dinner at Ceri and Scott’s house, as well as supplies for the New Year’s Day chili I was making for a couple of other friends. Dinner was lovely, although we were very tired and left not long after midnight. The boy woke us up on the first of January by wishing each of us (and all three cats on the bed, individually) a happy new year’s day. The huge pot of chili turned out very well, despite my ongoing anxiety about it not tasting chili-like enough and its refusal to thicken until I tossed some cornstarch into it. I made the accompanying cornmeal muffins with gluten-free potato flour, so my gluten-intolerant guest could eat them, and while they didn’t rise as much as the cornmeal muffins I make with regular flour (as expected) they tasted delicious. And not being able to decide what jelly to put atop the brie as it baked resulted in taking all three little jelly jars out to the table, where people got to put a dab of Jan’s jalapeno jelly, Ceri’s red pepper-garlic jelly, or my mum’s port wine jelly on crackers of baguette spread with just brie. A brilliant solution, if I do say so myself, and one that proved yet again how damn good baked brie is. Things were so relaxed that I completely forgot to bring out a platter of cookies and baked treats afterwards.

It’s been a lovely holiday, but we really need to get back on schedule; we’ve all been sleeping later in the mornings and staying up later at night, and staying in our jammies later than we ought to. The long car trips have thrown the boy’s nap schedule into disarray, as have the various different locations he’s been staying in. A return to schedule will be good for us all.

Home!

Hello, gentle readers! We are back from our week-long festive pilgrimage to various points in southern Ontario. The cats are falling all over themselves to be near us, which makes a nice change. (No, wait. They do that daily. Well, then, it makes a nice change from the I-choose-to-ignore-you that we usually get after a week away.)

The only damage sustained seems to be the hallway light that fell out of the ceiling. And I find it hard to believe the cats caused that. (I know, they are cats; anything is possible.)

I will write a vacation roundup and my end-of-year thinky post in the coming week. For now, even after a week away from the computer, I am surprisingly loathe to sit down for any length of time and type. The short version: My kitchen was very spoiled with gifts, and I bought my first Malabrigo while I was away.

Be safe and well as the calendar changes, friends.

Nowell!

A lovely, lovely carol singalong tonight with the Preston-LeBlancs, marred only by the boy’s meltdown when it got to be an hour past his bed time (first because he wanted to go home, then because he wanted to stay). We did get there later than I wanted to, because the boys got home later than I expected, but we had a wonderful time when we settled down at last. We had a lovely buffet of hot hors d’oeuvres and cheese and nummy little things, and drinks, and opened presents before turning to the music. Both sets of children were enchanted with their respective gifts, and other than the same CD we exchange every year (no, it’s not like regifting fruitcake; every year we buy one another a specific CD so we both have a copy), they gave me a print of one of my favourite Waterhouse paintings, St. Cecelia, which positively glowed in its heavy gilt frame when we saw it in person last month at the MMFA exhibition. The reproduction is surprisingly good, much better than most of those done of Waterhouse’s other works.

We were a guitar, a recorder, and a cello, each sightreading; always interesting! The adults gamely improvised Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman for the kids, and we had lovely versions of Away in a Manger and Silent Night, and courageous attempts at other carols. The boy squeezed in between my oldest goddaughter and myself and we sang Silent Night together (this version was all open strings on the cello, so I didn’t need to actually read the music), the boy looking up at me with a smile and copying the shapes of my mouth to sing the sounds. With his quickness at absorbing music and words, it ought to be easy to familiarise him with the traditional carols like the Gloucestershire Carol, Coventry Carol, and the Holly and the Ivy. I foresee a proper Solstice mix CD next winter.

I love this tradition our godfamilies share. Most of us could have kept on playing for a good long time, but small persons have their limits. Next year, we’ll definitely do this on a weekend afternoon in order to have more time to actually play and sing, although there’s something special about doing it at night, with the midwinter darkness outside the snow-framed windows that reflect the twinkling lights on the tree.

We’ve been back for a couple of hours, but I’m still wide awake. I should make warm vanilla milk and curl up in bed with my current book, Pamela Dean’s The Secret Country. It’s a reread, as I am completely out of new books and have not had the opportunity to get to the library for a month. We are hitting the local Indigo a day or so after Christmas for their annual thirty percent off all hardcovers sale, and the new Charles de Lint will be mine. I’d buy the new Elizabeth Bear hardcover too, but none of the shops in that area have it in stock, for some reason. (Our local Chapters claims to have two in stock, but I looked for it when we were there last Saturday, and it wasn’t on the shelf in either the fantasy or SF sections. You fail yet again at matching stock and inventory, Chapters store 00794. I give up on you.)